Car hire in Rovaniemi and around Lapland

One base, or several

The question is never “does Lapland need a car”. It is what your base needs. Rovaniemi’s own advice is that the centre is walkable and local buses cover the rest, Santa Claus Village included. A fell resort such as Levi works the same way close up, with the centre and the lifts within walking distance of most accommodation.

A car earns its keep on the ground between places, and at the husky farm, the national park or the wilderness cabin that no bus route reaches. So if your trip is one base and its own slopes, you may not need to hire anything at all. If it is two towns or more, read on.

Twelve desks at Rovaniemi, four at Kuusamo

Finavia lists the rental companies at each of its Lapland airports, and the counts are nothing like each other. Some desks, Finavia says, “are open only with a prior reservation”. Book ahead, and do not count on finding a staffed counter when you land.

Rovaniemi is also the one base with car hire away from the airport. Visit Rovaniemi names Hertz as running desks “at the airport, downtown and at the railway station”, with Green Motion and Sixt also holding a railway station office, alongside the local firm RovaRent. That matters if you arrive on VR’s overnight train, because it saves you a detour out to the airport to collect a car you will then drive back past the station.

Once you have one, parking in central Rovaniemi is charged “almost everywhere”, in Visit Rovaniemi’s own words, at 2 EUR an hour, paid at the on-site machines. The same ticket covers every chargeable car park and street space in the centre, but Visit Rovaniemi is specific that it “is not valid in the parking areas of Rovaniemi Airport and the railway station”, which charge separately.

Four rules for a winter road

Visit Finland sets out the basics for driving in Finland in winter:

• Snow tyres are a legal requirement from November to March, in Visit Finland’s own words.
• Headlights must be used at all times, in Finland generally, not only in poor visibility.
• Watch for elk and reindeer, Visit Finland says, “especially at dusk and dawn”. Slow down at those hours. The clear road ahead is the one you have not seen a reindeer step into yet.
• Traffic is right-hand, the opposite side to the UK, which takes a UK driver a day or two to stop thinking about.

Visit Rovaniemi’s own advice, if you are driving between towns, is to allow extra time “for the long distances and changing weather conditions, particularly in the winter.” A distance that looks short on a map can take longer than the same distance at home, once ice, a snow shower or a low sun on the horizon is added to it.

Rovaniemi to Levi, 2.5 hours, no car

A car is not the only way to cover ground. VR’s own advice is that from Rovaniemi railway station, Levi is “a 2.5-hour bus journey”, and from Kolari station, the end of the railway line, Ylläs is 35 km by bus and Levi 85 km by bus or car. Eskelisen Lapin Linjat runs scheduled coach services and charters from Oulu into Lapland and on into northern Norway, describing itself as having “millions of kilometres of experience of driving in Lapland”; tickets for its routes, and for other regional buses, are sold through Matkahuolto. At Kuusamo Airport, Finavia says there are “regular bus connections” on to the Ruka ski resort and to Salla National Park.

At the fell resorts, a taxi or a private transfer can stand in for a hire car on a single journey. Levi’s own arrival page names an airport bus run by Tunturilinjat between Kittilä Airport and Levi, alongside named taxi firms and a private minibus or larger transfer bus bookable through Visit Levi, none of which require you to drive yourself.

What people get wrong

Expecting a staffed rental desk on arrival. Some of the companies Finavia lists open only with a prior booking, and that is likeliest away from the main airports.

Expecting every airport to offer the same choice. Rovaniemi lists twelve rental companies. Kuusamo lists four. Look up the airport you are flying into.

Judging a drive by the distance on the map. Visit Rovaniemi’s own advice is to allow extra time for winter conditions, and the kilometres are the easy part of that sum.

Treating reindeer and elk as scenery. At dusk and dawn they are a real hazard on the road, and the car that stops for a photograph is not the problem.

And assuming a car is the only way between bases. VR’s bus connections from Rovaniemi and Kolari stations reach Levi and Ylläs without one, and Eskelisen Lapin Linjat’s coaches cover much of the rest of the region.

For the flights that get you to whichever airport suits your base, see flights to Lapland.